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Confusing Name Confounded Court
October 16, 2007
Federal judges don’t get life tenure and salary protection because they are infallible beings. On the contrary, job security (“judges ... shall hold their offices during good behaviour,” as the Constitution puts it) is afforded so judges can slip up without the job ax being waved in their faces by unhappy politicians in Congress.
But the federal courts do screw up, with Tuesday’s decision by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit being a good example. In the case, the court affirmed the Federal Communications Commission’s September 2005 decision to exempt phone companies that provide high-speed Internet access from network sharing rules that have traditionally applied to their monopoly voice networks.
In the opinion, the court at least twice made it abundantly clear that it thought the lead plaintiff, Time Warner Telecom, is a cable company providing cable modem service, a high-speed data service technologically distinct from phone companies’ digital subscriber line (DSL) service.
“We have never provided cable modem service. We don’t now and we never will,” Time Warner Telecom vice president of corporate communications Bob Meldrum said Tuesday a few hours after the ruling came down.
The court must have thought Time Warner Telecom was related to Time Warner Inc. or Time Warner Cable. But it’s not. Time Warner Telecom leases the name from Time Warner Inc. in a deal that expires June 30, 2008.
The court’s confusion over the true identity of Time Warner Telecom even fooled the United States Telecom Association, the phone industry’s D.C. trade association funded by AT&T, Verizon and hundreds of small phone carriers.
USTA spokeswoman Allison Remsen noted in a press release applauding the 3rd Circuit ruling that the FCC’s DSL ruling had been appealed by “several cable modem and broadband service providers.” When asked, Remsen was unable to provide the names of the cable modem providers.
Contrary to USTA’s agitprop, the cable industry made it very clear in 2005 that it would not attempt to frustrate the FCC’s effort to create regulatory parity between DSL and cable modem service.
Posted by Ted Hearn on October 16, 2007 | Comments (0)
